District 2 Hopefuls Debate Tax Vote

Call them die-hard optimists: Next Tuesday, for the fifth time since 1990, the Bensenville Elementary School Board will ask voters to approve a property tax increase.

The District 2 voters have rebuffed every attempt to raise their school taxes since 1968, but this time Supt. Cesare Caldarelli anticipates victory. If residents cannot see the need this year, he suggests, they never will.

With four school board seats up for election next week, some candidates and taxpayers are taking a magnifying glass to the board's spending practices.

The seven candidates for the school board discussed their positions at a sometimes-rowdy forum Monday night at Blackhawk Junior High School, 250 S. Church Rd.

Tempers flared during a question-and-answer session at the forum, which drew about 70 people.

One homeowner, Jackie Sirovatka, accused the current board of cutting programs to force a "yes" vote in the referendum. "I do not believe it was necessary to cut children's programs at this time. I sincerely believe it was punitive."

Faced with an annual shortfall of $900,000, the board decided last spring to eliminate 17 teaching positions, most of them in subjects like art, band and chorus.

And when students started class this fall, they found all extracurricular activities canceled as well.

Parents are furious, but Caldarelli said he had warned them before the last referendum. Now that Bensenville residents feel the consequences of their repeated "no" votes, he hopes they will have a change of heart.

"It is a very difficult, uphill, important process whenever you request an increase," Caldarelli said. "We would not be doing this again for fun."

Voters will be asked to approve a 45-cent increase in their school tax rate, bringing it to $1.91 per $100 assessed property value. That is 15 cents less than in the last referendum.

If the tax-hike proposal passes, the district will be able to reinstate the lost programs, plus push new curriculum improvements and stabilize the budget.

Caldarelli hopes that asking for less will give the referendum the nudge it needs.

Those running include three incumbents-Kathy Lane, LaNeta Bergst, and James Hamill, as well as four newcomers-Connie Wassell-Czarnecki, Robert Gatcke, Vicki Mackey and Judith Winebrenner.

The one candidate strongly opposed to raising the school tax rate is Gatcke, owner of a small business.

He entered the race with fists flying, demanding greater openness and tougher spending controls from the board. He has turned his attention to the teachers' contract and Caldarelli's.

The superintendent received a $15,000 bonus in a year of deficits and layoffs, he charged.

"It is costing about $150,000 a year, with all of his perks, to keep this superintendent in Bensenville," Gatcke said. "Let's spend the money where it belongs-it belongs with the children."

Another new candidate, Mackey, is also critical of the superintendent and the board. A mother of five children under age 10, she said she felt compelled to run after watching the district cut programs and run into deficit spending.

"I am not a politician, I am just a mom," Mackey said. Her greatest complaint is what she sees as a lack of communication.

Wassell-Czarnecki, a real estate agent, said she entered the race out of a similar concern for her community. When her 11-year-old son lost his music classes this fall, she wondered if she should move.

But "I was born and raised in Wood Dale and Bensenville," she said. "I decided, no, every child in this district is important to me."

Wassell-Czarnecki said she supports the decisions taken by the current board. She has fought for the tax hike since 1990, she said.

"I feel it is an absolute necessity," she said.

Winebrenner, a secretary at Bensenville Village Hall, likewise supports the referendum proposal. A mother of a 15-year-old son, she thinks the district must keep its extracurricular programs in place.

All the incumbents support the referendum, and have staunchly defended the decision to cut music and art jobs.

Lane, who has a daughter in high school, said the board worked hard to develop a long-range education plan that would develop the science, math, reading and other basic curriculum of the schools.

"We are developing a higher level of schooling," she said. "We need the money. We have proved it. Why would people like us go year after year making our neighbors mad at us, asking for money?"

Lane, former executive director of the Suburban O'Hare Commission, called the decision to cut extracurricular programs "the better of two real bad choices."

Bergst was appointed to the board in 1993 and subsequently elected without opposition. She said she is seeking a second term because of her commitment to curriculum development.

"We had gotten started, and then the financial crisis hit the wall," she said. "The first thing now has got to be getting the financial stability of the district under control."

She and her husband own a tool-and-die company, and they have three children, ages 13, 19 and 21.

James Hamill said he would work to continue the board's emphasis on academics.

"I think we have a responsibility to see that the children are educated to the best that the village and the district can do, and to make sure that they are competitive," said Hamill, the sales and operations manager for a Goodyear-owned truck tire center.

He said he would like to expand and renovate parts of Blackhawk Junior High.

"The science labs at Blackhawk are exactly the same as when I graduated in 1964," said Hamill, a father of two teenagers.